Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores the ways and degrees to which tax can remap space, thereby bolstering decolonization. I call this “decolonial taxation.”

Paper Abstract:

While scholars have long unpacked tax’s contribution to colonialism, few have underscored its ability to empower the colonized. Accordingly, this paper explores the ways and degrees to which tax can remap space, thereby bolstering decolonization. I call this “decolonial taxation.” Taking the US as its primary case study, the paper draws on legal geography and critical cartography to argue that tax achieves two broad types of spatial decolonization. The first, “endogenous tax remapping,” takes place either within or beyond the ambit of federal Indian law and comprises initiatives that stem from tribes. The second, “collective tax remapping,” involves both tribes and outsiders and can operate inside the framework of federal Indian law or take a more radical approach. Ultimately, the paper contends, decolonial taxation sheds light on a scantily explored yet powerful way of fighting back against settler colonialism.